The grazing lands of Great Britain used to be free for everyone to use. Shepherds would send out their flocks of sheep and cattle into the common space, and neighbors would watch over their flocks together. It worked pretty well. Then over time ideas rose that land belonged to specific people. Eventually, it all got parceled into privately owned land that wasn’t shared any more. The fencing of the commons changed how people interacted, and divided the community into people who had land, and people who didn’t. The indigenous people that believed the land belonged to everyone know a thing or two about how ownership of the earth changes us.
COVID is changing where we spend all of our time. For the most fortunate among us, the biggest such change is where we work. But we’re spending our leisure time at home too, and the longer we go on without movie theaters and live music shows and restaurants, the more we get used to it.
Today I was overwhelmed with how happy I am to be Working From Home (WFH). It’s been so long since I’ve seen colleagues in person, I’ve even forgotten what it’s like to miss them. I love just shutting down my computer when I’m done at night, instead of waiting for a late evening MAX train and walking home in the rain. I love cuddling with Berry and just starting as late as I feel like instead of running to catch the commuter train. I love taking out the recycling when I am compelled to procrastinate instead of going out for a smoke. I love my kitty breaks. I love making a snack in my kitchen, with food I don’t have to plan and schlepp. I love turning on the TV when I have a snack. Love everything about it. I am also able to laser-focus in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible.
So this is one of those things that people now know they love, and for those of us with a choice, this change will be permanent. So many changes will be permanent. The home shows on HGTV will start showing homes with separate offices and homework stations as a total must. There will be home gyms and home yoga studios and home theaters. The affluent will have all the things in their homes that they used to go elsewhere for.
Two thoughts about that: What about the people who can’t afford those things? If past practice is any indication, public/shared facilities will get shabbier and shabbier until they basically stop functioning. Gyms, rec centers, workplaces – once the affluent don’t have a personal stake in them being good places, they will withdraw their financial support and things will deteriorate – probably pretty fast.
And then, without our workplaces and schools and shared spaces, where will any of us interact with people who are different from us? When we don’t even go to the movies together, when will black and white interact? When will little Spanish-speaking children meet little English-speaking children when they’re home with WFH mom instead of at day care? When will rich and poor intersect? We will get more and more isolated in our homogenous bubbles. The echo chamber gets stronger, the social fabric gets weaker.
There’s so much that will change; we’ve barely seen the beginnings of it. Here we go…
Thanks. There are interesting ideas, and I’ve seen so much of it come true already.
It made me think a little about the Hillbilly Elegy book, where JD Vance moves to urban Ohio. Though it initially seems more prosperous and hopeful than his Kentucky home, he gradually sees the socioeconomic decay growing in Ohio, too. One sign that gets his attention is how the city parks and tennis courts all gradually fall into disarray. It’s similar to what you said here: public facilities fell into neglect as the people and jobs who could move on to better places did leave, year over year.
All of the things you talk about, whether run by a city, state, national, or other government or run by individuals with some incentives to serve the public, these things literally comprise community. The Latin roots of community are “co” and “munus” and here they meaning something like “holding or working together”. The examples you gave, from shared gym spaces to a shared narrative (vs the isolated echo chambers you directly mentioned), are things that we made and held together and that are under stress now.
Well, thanks for the post. I try to not be gloomy about it, because I do live in a great city with some great people, but it will take something bigger or different to get people to come together than it did before the pandemic.
I had thought that humans are inherently social creatures but the eager adoption of wfh certainly challenges that. Some admirable achievements like public transportation will be unsustainable if much less transport is needed. I should just relax and await the emergence of a new paradigm.
LOL, we can shake our canes at the empty buses rolling by until they stop rolling by. With so many changes in life, benefits, and drawbacks, many yet to be discovered. We shall see!